Alpena, MI 49707 Weather

Key messages

- Patchy fog tonight, few showers this weekend with slowly moderating temps.

- Milder early to mid next week with increasing rain chances.

Discussion

Issued at 220 PM EDT Fri Oct 30 2026

Pattern Synopsis and Forecast:

Sfc high pressure slowly drifts over northern Michigan this evening in wake of cold advection, repositioning just to the east by Saturday morning. Temperatures drop into the mid 20s to low 30s most areas as a result. Not a huge signal for fog tonight, but not impossible given the sfc pattern and some progged soundings. Thus there could be some patches over the interior, river valleys, and notorious foggy spots. Otherwise, sfc high continues to shift east with subtle energy embedded within the west to east flow aloft this weekend. Warm advection and better moisture flux later Saturday into early Sunday will likely result in few to scattered showers across the area, but likely not amounting to much overall (<0.10" for many). Temperatures steadily warm a few degrees each day through this weekend.

The focus for the weather over the next week or so will be the early to mid next week time frame. A huge trough, with plenty of individual pieces of energy, dives into the Intermountain West/West coast. This feature will shift east with time into mid next week and as you'd expect, a potent sfc low pressure system will develop across the middle portions of the country. The question becomes, how do the chaotic pieces of energy interact and thus where does the low pressure system track/best upper lift reside, and what this all means for northern Michigan. Well, at this time, it looks like the Upper Midwest is the favored area for a first/parent low pressure system to track mid next week based on the current ensembles, with a secondary area of low pressure system possibly tracking across the Mississippi Valley. Cannot stress enough how convoluted this pattern looks aloft, but it does appear northern Michigan will get in on at least some rain. Current ensemble means show the potential for a healthy rain (0.5" to 1.0") across the area, but the exact interaction of these features will change this forecast for the later Monday-ish to Wednesday-ish time. There could be multiple rounds of rain as well, or perhaps not much rain early in the week and more mid week. So a lot to iron out in the coming days. Not much sensible weather outside of the rain next week except for breezy conditions at times.

Aviation

Issued at 130 PM EDT Fri Oct 30 2026

VFR/marginally VFR with lake effect cigs of SCT-BKN at 3 to 5 kft. NW winds of 5 to 10kts with occasional G15kts will continue through 23z. Winds will become calm overnight. Chances for FG/BR impacts near KAPN/KCIU exist from 08z through 12z. Best chances for impacts is near KAPN, however FG/BR may remain patchy enough to not impact terminal direct but remain in the vicinity. S/SE winds AOB 8kts with no vis and cig impacts after 12z through the end of the period.

Watches, warnings and advisories

MI: None. MARINE: Small Craft Advisory until 8 PM EDT this evening for LSZ321.